K-pop and future impacts of its dominance: Experts' views on fandom of Korean culture

A professor at University of California (UCLA) School of Theatre, Film, and Television, Kim Suk-young, refers to K-Pop as being entirely in line with Gen-Z. Gen-Z is a general term for people born between 1995 and 2010. The popular social channels, including TikTok, YouTube, and online crazes, all fall as perfect cubes for the first generation of digital natives.

Kim calls Gen-Z inspirational, open to global culture, supports undistributed societies, and globally connected through online consumption. Although today's generation is socially liberal, they are fiscally conservative. Korean culture brings in many of these ideas with little things in harmony and visually beautiful.
Kim also references the BTS video about living in the present as the future is futile.




The Korean brand holds an underdog power. In explaining why the Korean wave has globally emerged more than culture from other countries, Kim says that Korea is economically advanced with a mid-sized power. She references a recent hit series on Netflix, Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

While explaining the success of 'Squid Game,' the most extensive hit series on Netflix, Kim says it was based on the deep study of human relationships, vocalizing social justice.

A professor at Penn State University, Sam Richards, refers to the 'magic mixture' that makes Korean culture and K-pop trendy, lacking violence and overt lovemaking. Sam exclaimed what Squid Game would look like if only h had made it in the US.
Richards warns that for Korean culture to sustain itself in the long run, it will need to grow and evolve.

Sam is also critical of the Korean profit model, which introduces new acts and lacks a durable fan engagement with Korean musicians. Korea will also have to battle climate change, statistics that make it a squeezing and rapidly aging society.

Although social injustice themes have raised the entertainment value with Parasite and Squid Game, the issue belittles Korea as a lead model. While trying to define a way of maintaining the Korean trend and popularity, Richards adds that there are multiple ways of not following the Hollywood model but avoiding the mistake of creating content generalized to a population that you don't clearly understand.